Krenzik's War Part 5
by TheManipulator
Summary: Taking place during Flesh and Bone Jay and Toby take a job for trade aboard the mail carrier Mazingo after the news that the Cylons look human rocks the entire fleet.


Krenzik's War-Part 5

Title: Krenzik's War

Author: Manipulator

Word count: 5960

Rating: (M)

Spoilers: "Flesh and Bone"

Disclaimer: BSG is property of NBC/Universal

Notes: Some have erroneously referred to this as an "alternate universe" story. That's incorrect. Krenzik's story arc is supposed to flow seamlessly, parallel with the actual show's canon. This installment follows parts 1-4 of "Krenzik's War" and if you haven't already, you should read those first.

The wireless feed was patched through the intercom, when we heard the news. When we heard that Cylons looked like us. They breathed, ate, slept, laughed, trimmed their fingernails.

We stopped, frozen. I let my wrench absently slide from my hand, the secondary coolant line in front of me an afterthought. I didn't even jump as it clattered against my stepladder.

I wondered if they stopped to smell flowers, or if sometimes their knees ached when it rained. I wondered how one of those things that moved in unison, with one purpose, one vision, without remorse, or fear, into Galactica's cannons, could be in a person's shell.

One confused set of eyes met another, down below, as we listened to President Roslin tell us, flatly, how a humanoid Cylon (Those words just scratched together so wrongly in my mind.) was captured aboard the Geminon Traveler. Commander Adama had deemed this information classified, until then. They had known since the first jump from Ragnar.

How many were there? Had I met any, already? I thought about all the people we were swapping alcohol for rations with, know-how for tools, the shuttle pilots, and the people flying the vipers that patrolled the fleet. They could even walk among those who protected us.

Caff shattered the dumbfounded silence, clanging an air wrench against an auto-lift.

"Alright people," he said, his voice resonating over the hum of electricity and the churn of the main turbine. "Let's get back to work, here. I'm sure we'll--"

The intercom chimed. It was Jeffers.

"Meeting in the mess in fifteen minutes. Meeting, fifteen minutes."

We immediately dumped our tools, all of us trying to not look like we were bolting for the head, to wash up.

"That's some crazy shit, man," Ed Coursen said, as he rubbed orange soap into his forearm with his opposite hand's fingertips. "Wonder what else they ain't tellin' us?"

Marty shook his head.

"What're we gonna do? How can they tell who's human and who isn't?"

"She said they look identical to us, man. We can't," Toby grumbled.

I was focusing on digging the grit from my nails with a soaped up brush. I was keeping my mouth shut. Let them freak out all over. I was running screaming, between my ears, already. Since my little meeting with Jasper Bertrand, all of us had been working on other ships' maintenance, making liquor runs. A lot of the short- range ships had seen us for one reason or another. Somewhere out there I may have shaken hands with the enemy, traded smiles with something that wanted me dead. I didn't want to even let the notion that one of these guys, or that the officers Up Top, were Cylon agents, cold steel infused with soft flesh and blood.

Stengler held up two pictures Colonial One sent over. One was of a nondescript brown-haired man. The other was the corpse of a hard-faced guy, with several days of stubble, who had obviously been beaten to death.

"What happened to the dead guy," Mangan asked. Bobby looked over at him and chuckled.

"Looks like he died, Mangan."

We all laughed, relishing the break in the fear that had been shooting through us since that first announcment.

"That's enough," Jeffers barked, dissipating the chatter.

"They didn't say," Stengler continued, going back to a printout he was referring to. "But, as the President told us, there are additional copies of each model. Now, you mechanics have been moving around the last couple weeks, seen a lot of faces. Ring any bells?"

We all looked at one another, shook our heads. I wondered if I hadn't, unknowingly, come within a couple feet of either one of those guys, or copies of them, maybe brushed by them on the way to an engine room, or an atmosphere processor. What would I do if I did? Judging from the dead one's looks, he'd put up one hell of a fight.

The inter-colonial mail carrier Manzingo, out of Scorpia, needed her main coolant line patched. Her crew of four didn't include a mechanic, since they used to make runs between Scorpia and and Virgon, never out more than ten hours a day. Toby and I were en route in a raptor, his welding gear, and a 150-pound steel patch collar sat piled up between us.

The raptor's ECO, a dark-haired, wiry woman who introduced herself as Lt. Edmondson, eyed the collar we rested our arms against warily.

"That thing isn't going to roll off there is it?"

"We got it," I told her. "Don't sweat it."

She nodded, then turned to the pilot, up front.

"Hey Karma, take it easy on this one, okay?"

He grunted an affirmation, and we broke away from the Lady. I glimpsed sight of the luxury liner, before feeling the raptor ascend, rising over the entire fleet. I wondered what Bertrand was thinking, right now. I pictured him with a rocks glass, savoring some of the last fine liquors in the universe, formulating, revising, and plotting a way to benefit from the new threat that walked in our flesh and blood. Beyond all of that, I wondered what was going on with the Cylon they had in custody. I didn't see much point in asking. Beyond that he was probably being interrogated, these two wouldn't tell us much, if anything.

Ten minutes later, we achieved hard seal with the Mazingo. The Lieutenant told us they would be back in about 90 minutes, and we'd better be ready. Okay mom, I thought, as the raptor ascended, once again, up and over the fleet. I guess this whole Cylon business had everyone grumpy, and evidently making damn sure they were on schedule.

The pilot called himself Jerry, and greeted us both with a firm, emphatic handshake. He was a little shorter than me, but short limbed and built like a cinderblock, reminding me a little of Nick. The top of his standard Colonial Postal Authority gold jumpsuit was pulled down, sleeves tied around his thick waist, revealing a sweat-stained t-shirt underneath. Right here, I realized we had it pretty good so far on the Lady. Even if we weren't getting better rations courtesy of Bertrand, and the various deals we had made for booze and our know-how, we still had the laundry room, and shower stalls. The poor bastards on this post-office mule didn't have much beyond a sink or two.

"Anker, one of the fork truck guys, noticed the sensor going off," Jerry explained, as we dragged Toby's gear and my tools down the narrow corridor, behind him. "From what we could tell, it's not ready to blow, but if we have to jump, we're gonna have big problems."

"Don't sweat, it man. That's what we're here for," Toby said, as his gas tank clanked off a wall.

"Hey," I asked Jerry, as we came to a sign, with an arrow pointing down to the engine room. "Can we take a look at the scanner first?"

Jerry stopped in his tracks, and turned. I hated to bring it up, but there was a deal to be made first. We fixed their coolant line, they gave us a radio scanner which could tune into a limited range of channels on the military band. It was one of the many things they scrounged out of the mail, which was their payload. Tons of packages that no longer had destinations were part of the new currency.

"Well, sure, guys," he said, his face getting a little red. I couldn't blame him. They were absolutely dependent on the government and people like Toby and I for nearly everything. I knew a vessel in Mazingo's class probably had to tank water from Galactica at least three times a week, and they had no cafeteria or freezer. All they could store were non-perishable rations.

He led us past the ladder descending to the engine, then to the tiny cockpit. In the copilot's seat was small, lanky guy around my age, who was introduced to me as Rob. At Jerry's prompting, he produced the scanner, a portable model. Its black case was a half-meter by half-meter plastic box, with a digital readout and two knobs to control volume and channel. This wasn't a bad deal at all, it even had an internal antenna--no clunky rabbit ears to mess with. Rob plugged it in, under their command console, and we could hear chatter between pilots, and, when we switched channels, some of traffic control on Galactica.

"You probably won't get any comm from Galactica's actual, or CiC," Jerry said. "And if they're in combat, they'll scramble their signal. This little baby will get you crosstalk in times like this, in addition to uncoded civvies' transmissions."

He smiled expectantly at us. I could tell these guys would probably welcome the chance to scuttle this tub, but it was all they had. He mentioned two forklift drivers in the back. I wondered how they were handling all this, without even running the ship to keep busy.

Toby looked over to me, nodding.

"I dig it. What do you think?"

"I think we have a deal." I looked to Jerry. "Okay, show us the way, and we'll get you patched up."

Once again, I realized how spoiled we were on the Lady, despite her advanced age. The ladder went down a narrow tunnel, evidently under the payload, into a dimly lit engine room. The main turbine was small, old, and probably hadn't been maintained on any sort of schedule in years. The ceiling was only six or seven meters high, with no room for an auto lift track, or to fit additional equipment in. The Mazingo was intended solely for maintenance in dry dock. Toby and I had to carry his tank, torch, and the rest of our gear down in three trips. Then we had to disassemble the steel collar into two pieces to bring it down. It wouldn't have killed Jerry to help, but he just stood at the top of the hatch, picking dirt from his fingernails.

I cursed under my breath as the rechargeable drill plodded along, getting each one of the nuts into place, as I wedged myself under the coolant line. In moments like these, I wished I was small. Toby didn't say much as he jumped into his suit, and tested the flame on his torch. We both just wanted to get this shit detail over with. I finally got the tenth and final nut tightened, and the collar was ready for the top seam to be welded shut.

I slid out, and jumped off the turbine, my right shoulder covered with ground-in soot. Jerry came down the ladder, with two 20-ounce plastic water bottles.

"Thought you fellas might be thirsty."

He tossed one to Toby, and one to me, which I caught while dusting my shirt off with my other hand.

Jerry nodded, seemingly impressed.

"Hey, there, guy. Quick reflexes. You caught that without looking."

I smiled, more out of realizing I still had some of the reflexes from my days on the court, than his compliment.

"Yeah, a little leftover from the Pyramid days."

His face lit up. If this was before humanity's last run, I would have groaned at what I knew was coming. Now, though, I welcomed the chance to listen to a pyramid nut.

"You played the game, huh? In high school?"

Toby rolled his eyes at me, as he carried his torch up, behind Jerry, and straddled the coolant line. Before welding school, he had to listen to the deafening silence of recruiters who passed on him because of his grades, combined with exceedingly average skills on the court. Every time Pyramid came up on the ship, he was the first to lose interest in any discussion once I opened my mouth.

"Yeah," I nodded. I chugged down my water in one, continuous swallow, wiped my mouth on the back of my hand. "Then I went to Libron Tech, played for a couple years before dropping out."

"Libron Tech?" He grinned again, ruefully. "Well, I was always a big Picon A&I fan."

Picon A&I was a big conference rivalry. A title at stake, plus playing one another for over 90 years, set the stage for intense showdowns every time both schools took the court. I didn't know who looked forward to the games more, the players or the fans. During my two seasons, we thumped A&I, handing out their worst defeat ever at home, my sophomore year, when I played the entire second half.

I smiled, showing plenty of teeth. "I was there for the big one, you remember? Seven years ago, at A n' I. I was just a backup and I scored in double digits.

"Really," he asked, as Toby was showered in sparks, making his way down the seal. "I was at that game. Don't remember you."

Well, that was a hard dose of reality. It appears that my mercifully brief and injury-riddled athletic career would not be one of the enduring legacies of humanity.

I shrugged. "Well, after riding pine my first year, I was the backup center, sometimes forward. I got in if Jericho needed a breather, or we were on the right end of a blowout."

Jerry pursed his lips, as his brow creased.

"Hmmm…now Andy Jericho I remember. Two-time intercolonial, got that tryout with Caprica City. But you just don't look familiar." Then he laughed. "Oh well. Guess you outlasted Kreska, though."

He was referring to our head coach, Caesar Kreska. He had a great knack for getting moms and dads to turn their kids over to him and Libron Tech, but wasn't exactly a tactical genius when it came to the game. When I graduated from tech school, he had been fired.

"No, Kreska, was still there. He didn't get fired till a couple seasons later."

"You sure, Jay?" He cocked his meaty head, surveying me with narrowed eyes.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose. I could feel a subtle, dark shift in his mood. Everybody who followed the game knew Kreska was ousted five years ago. Everybody that wasn't full of crap, that is. Then again, memories were harder to keep, sometimes, since everything behind us was dead and gone.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure of it."

His eyes fixed on mine for a second too long, and I didn't blink until he did. Toby was halfway down the collar. I could tell his head was cocked little, and he was trying to listen to what he could behind his mask.

Jerry shrugged. "Yeah, you're probably right. Seen nothing but the inside of this thing for so long, I'm getting my dates mixed up."

He laughed. It was contrived, and sounded every bit insincere. "Well, I gotta get back up top. Just come on by the cockpit when you're done."

I nodded, and with that, Jerry lugged himself back up the ladder. Toby cut off his torch, flipped up his mask.

"What's his thing, man," he asked.

"Frakked if I know. Just finish this shit and let's get outta here."

"So say we all. These guys are stir crazy."

He flipped the torch to life, flipped down his mask. He didn't stop until the seam was done, sparks dancing in the black glass slit he peered from.

We lugged my toolbox, his tank, suit, and torch up the ladder in one trip. We heard the soft clank of hard seal against the portside bulkhead. Our raptor was right on time. Thank the Gods.

I told Toby to take what he could, and start loading the raptor, as I settled up with Jerry and Rob, in the cockpit.

"Thanks a million," Jerry told me, as they escorted me back down the hall, toward the airlock. "We're sure glad guys like you are out there."

I carried the scanner in both hands, as they walked behind me. I got the feeling they were glad to be rid of us too. A chill slithered up my spine, as I noticed both of them were behind me, seeming cautious. Cautious of what? Just around the corner would be the airlock, and the raptor sealed, ready to pick us up. I fought the urge to quicken my pace.

"Oh, Jay, one more thing," Jerry asked. I stopped, and he eased in front of me.

"Yeah? Need some hooch? I'm sure we can--"

"No, no," he said, waving his hand. Rob was very quiet behind me. Too quiet? "I just thought about our conversation earlier, and--"

Sharp pain slammed into my kidneys, and my back arched, reflexively, and my arms were suddenly pinned back, as the scanner clattered to the floor.

Jerry's face twisted into a feral grimace.

"Everybody knows Kreska was fired seven years ago…and I never missed a Picon A&I game, and I sure as frak don't remember you."

"Look man, be cool, okay," I said, trying to stall for time, hopefully Toby would be coming down that hallway. Rob's poor grip around my arms couldn't hold me, at least I didn't think it couldn't. They could have a knife, gun, in that jumpsuit, or anything. I tried to slow my heartbeat down, wait for Toby. Where the frak was he?

"Look pal. I don't know who you're tryin' to fool, but you know what? I think you're one of them Cylons. Your robot brain just couldn't keep all your facts straight."

My blood turned to ice. These guys were absolutely nuts. I flexed my arms. Yeah, Rob couldn't hold me for that long. Little frak. All I had to do was use a little technique I learned in Basic Self-defense--a class to fill my phys ed. block in college. I pictured the whole thing, smooth, quick, and then I did it.

I screamed, and, with all my strength, fought Rob's grip, clutched Jerry's shirt, and let Rob pull my hands back, once again, and ram his pilot's nose right into my forehead. Jerry staggered back, slumping to the floor red blood gushing down his mouth and chin. His nose was a flattened mess, and he screamed an unintelligible mass of curses, clutching his face. White pain crossed my vision on contact. Ideally, you're supposed to be able to run like hell, after this, but the little speckles in front of my eyes, and the corridor spinning made that a little difficult. I turned, though. Good old Rob was about to get a taste.

Instead, I turned into the butt end of a foot-long lead pipe, cracking me just above the forehead. There were no stars this time, just the brief sensation of something warm, runny, oozing, then blackness.

I awoke, my mouth filled with the taste of copper, my left hand slick with blood. Everything felt almost ethereal, not quite there. I saw a gold jumper, feet, trembling legs. I heard a voice above me. To my right? Everything sounded like I was under water. I craned my neck and the world spun, but I could make out combat boots and a flight suit. I looked up, and realized my left eye was stuck shut with congealing blood. Edmondson, the ECO, had her sidearm raised, in both hands. Her eyes were wide and all business.

"I told you, motherfrakker," she said through clenched teeth. "drop it, or I will shoot you in the face!"

Rob let the pipe clang to the floor. Edmondson nodded.

"Now that's good. We're going to get outta here. And you better stay right there, and don't move, or I'll vent you, and make it look like your fault."

A dark, wet spot spread across the crotch of Rob's suit. I felt hands clutch my shoulders, trying to help me up.

"Jay?"

It was Toby. Thank the Gods for Toby. I never thought I'd have to say that.

I was eased into a sitting position, while Edmondson kept her gun trained on Rob, and Jerry, who still sat where I left him, his flattened face a mask of red.

"Hey, Jay, do you think you can walk?"

I didn't know if I could tie my own shoes, or even say for sure where I was, but I nodded. My body didn't agree with me, though. The instant I tried to rise, everything grew warm and fuzzy at the edges, then black again.

I woke with a start, remembered the gun, Rob pissing himself, Jerry cowering against a bulkhead. Firm but gentle hands against my chest eased me back down. The Lieutenant, loomed over me. Her expression was still hard, but more kindly, now, showing no trace that this was the same person who was ready to blow Rob's head off. Strands of dark hair lingered around her cheeks from her once severe ponytail.

"Don't try and sit up. Do you know where you are?"

I just couldn't quite get the words to form in my mind, as I looked around this world that I seemed to have only one foot in. I saw Toby standing above her, looking a kid who just saw the worst car accident ever.

"Hey Toby," I croaked, not able to think of anything else.

She sighed.

"Okay, what's your name?"

"Jay…"

"Good. Jay? I'm Maggie, alright? We're taking you to Galactica, and the doc's going to patch you up. You're going to be just fine."

She looked up and back at Toby.

"Get me that med kit behind you."

Toby complied. She cracked it open, put on surgical gloves, and started wiping my face down with an alcohol pad. Each time she took her hand away, her gloves looked bloodier in the harsh lights. A spot just above my forehead, to the left, burned insanely, as she dabbed, and swabbed over it. I grunted, but my limbs couldn't flinch like they wanted to.

She affixed two butterfly strips on my head, her hands looking as if she butchered a pig by the time we landed. I could feel us touch down, then, a moment later, descend. The hatch opened, and a stretcher was waiting, with two armed marines on either side, a medic between them. The pilot, Karma, and Maggie each took an arm, and walked me slowly over to it, as Toby trailed behind. My head spun, as I looked around me, mechanics in their orange jumpsuits stopping to check out the bloodied spectacle before them. Karma was a little shorter than me, holding up my right side with no problem. Maggie had to keep a hand on my side to hold me up, as her head was wedged in my armpit. She looked a lot taller staring down Rob.

My brain felt as if it were sloshing as I turned my head. I let out a garbled mess that was supposed to signify "what's that?"

The menacing crescent of a Cylon raider sat on jack stands, a mechanic's legs hanging out the bottom, as it's dark slit of an eye stared back at me.

"Oh hell…" I murmured. Maggie patted me on the stomach.

"Okay, Jay, we're here."

One of the marines, a hard-faced black man, blocked the way.

"We have to frisk him, sirs."

"Come on," the pilot called Karma said. "Look at him."

"I'm sorry, sir. This comes from the XO."

At least the corpsman was quick about it. He patted me down in about five seconds, concluded I would be no threat in my delirium, and let us pass.

"Just take it easy, there, pal," the medic said, easing my shoulders back on the gurney. Everybody was sure concerned that I take it easy. It wasn't like I was suddenly going to boogie down in the middle of the flight deck.

I was taken up a flight of steps, then down another, as ceiling lights passed over me. I wondered if I'd run into Commander Adama again. This time, it would have been more like "Don't turn your back on the mailman, Jay Krenzik. Don't ever forget that."

We eased to a stop, and I could smell the freshly sanitized neatness that comes along with hospitals.

The medic flashed a penlight into both of my eyes, then had me follow the beam from left to right, up and down.

"What's your name," she asked me.

"Jay Krenzik."

"Do you know where you are?"

"Yes."

She paused, as if waiting for more. At the time, I couldn't imagine what else she could possibly need.

"Um, okay, Jay. Where are you then?"

"I'm on the Galactica."

"Good. What ship are you from."

"The Lady-the Lady of Libron II."

"Alright, Jay. You've had a nasty concussion. We're going to take some X-Rays, just to be sure, but you probably will just need some stitches, okay?"

Okay? take it easy, alright? Those words were as plentiful as the stars around us. Her soothing tone made me smile a little, as I just couldn't quite feel still, even though the gurney wasn't moving.

"Alright! What the hell's going on," a male voice boomed. Maggie, Karma, the medic, they all snapped to attention and saluted.

The face attached to that voice was old and balding, his smooth dome flanked by closely trimmed white hair. He now loomed over me. Colonel's bars were attached to the collar of his uniform. Tired eyes that still radiated all business looked me over. He paused, looking at the top of my head, winced.

"Good grief, what the hell happened to you son?"

I tried to piece together the threads of memory, how Jerry thought I was a Cylon, because he believed he knew better than I did about when my college Pyramid coach was fired.

"Uh…. He thought I was a Cylon, because…because of Pyramid."

That was as good as it would get until my brain congealed into a fully functioning organ again.

He looked up to the medic, sneering in pure disgust.

"Gods, his bell's rung. We're not going to get anything out of him." The colonel looked over to Toby.

"Who are you, did you see this?"

"Yes! Yes sir," Toby answered raptly.

"What's your name, young man?"

"Toby Dempsey, I--"

"We don't have all day, here. Tell me why your buddy is sitting here bleeding all over the place."

The medic patted my hand, and whispered to me.

"He always talks like that. It's not that bad."

Cool. In the ether I was floating in, the medic and I had a little secret.

Toby told the Colonel everything-- from Jerry's questioning me in their engine room on Pyramid chronology to the moment I woke up and saw the Lieutenant holding Rob at gunpoint.

"Gods dammit, with everything going on right now, we don't need stir-crazy mailmen," the colonel barked. He turned to Maggie and Karma.

"Racetrack, Karma, you two are going over there with two marines and Tommy here--"

"It's Toby," the welder said. The Colonel ignored him, giving orders without slowing down.

"--and they will let you in, and will turn over any tools, and whatever it was they were trading for. If they give you any crap, you just tell them that if the Mazingo's name comes within earshot of the Galactica again…" His upper lip curled into a snarl. "You tell them that they can scrub their asses with their lead pipe for a few days without tanking water from us for a while."

This guy sounded like a nut, but Maggie and Karma just saluted crisply and left. I'm sure there would be no more trouble out of the Manzingo.

He loomed over me once again.

"Don't you worry, son. You're getting the best care the fleet can offer. And not too many civvies get to see this part of a battlestar."

His poor attempt at warmth did little to enhance his bedside manner.

"Well, Colonel," I said, clearing my throat. "I should get my ass kicked more often, huh?"

His thin lips returned to their apparently usual down-turned state, and he was gone.

I was wheeled into an imaging room, and my gurney was slid under a large camera on a swing arm.

I tried to remember the last time I needed X-rays. I believed it was eleventh grade. My mom was a nurse at the hospital, and happened to be off that day. I twisted my ankle running along the road, near our house. I was pretty sure it wasn't broken, but she insisted, even though she knew better, since I could walk on it, she sped me off to get the pictures taken, anyway. I pushed the thought away, not needing anything else to drag me down further than I was already. The medic covered my chest with a heavy, hospital teal-colored lead vest.

"Shut your eyes," she told me, before moving around my head, taking the images of my skull.

I was back out, in the middle of the infirmary, my gurney raised into a seated position. After a couple minutes, my head stopped spinning. Most of the beds were empty, but there were a few men and a couple women in casts, large areas of arms, and chests covered in bandages. I tried not to stare, but I suddenly didn't feel so bad about my predicament. The medic pulled a green curtain around us on an overhead track.

"Doc Cottle will be with you shortly," she said, before leaving.

Unlike any other hospital I'd been in, "shortly" actually did mean "shortly." The curtain was pulled back by an old man in a coat as white as his hair. A lit cigarette hung from his lips.

"Looks like you got busted open pretty good, there, young man. I'm Doctor Cottle. Let's take a look," he said, putting down his clipboard, before carefully resting his cigarette on a metal tray to my left.

He put on a pair of surgical gloves and leaned in, his cool fingers touching around my wound.

"You get a good look at this yet, uh, what's your name, son?"

"Jay, Doctor."

"You get a good look at this, yet, Jay?"

My eyes found my bloodstained shirt, and the crusty maroon that caked the New Castle Freight logo above my left breast pocket.

"No, sir."

"Good. It's not that big, but it's deep. I'm seeing bone, there. You'll probably need maybe four--no--five or six stitches. It shouldn't leave much of a scar though. It's up around the hairline."

"Well, that's some good news, I guess."

He grunted, which I guess was supposed to be a chuckle, as he resumed smoking. I figured since he was practicing a laid back policy on cigarettes, it wouldn't hurt to ask.

"Can I get a smoke off you, Doc?"

He forced out another small laugh.

"What the hell? Looks like we have a minute before the medic gets back. If you pass out, you're lying down, anyway." He pulled a box out of his coat pocket, shook one out.

I fished my lighter from my pants pocket, and lit up. I felt a little dizzy, but I stayed lucid.

"So," Cottle asked. "What set all this off?"

My mind was a little less murky, so I could give him a more coherent answer than I gave to the Colonel, if not the full one.

"The guy thought my college pyramid coach got fired two years before he actually did. And he didn't remember seeing me play in the Libron Tech/Picon A&I game."

He shook his head in that contemplative way that only the old seem to master.

"My Gods, it's come to this. Ever since the news broke this morning, I'd been waiting for people to start going at each other's throats, but over this? Doesn't make a damn bit of sense."

I shrugged.

"Well? What does anymore?"

He grinned wanly, and nodded. Behind him, the curtain parted. It was Toby.

"Hey, Jay, just checkin' on you before I left, right? Are you--"

Cottle turned to him and said: "You must be my new medic."

"Uh, no, I'm not, Doc."

Cottle blew out a lazy puff of smoke, which surrounded Toby's head.

"Then get the hell out of my infirmary. No one's going to need a priest."

Toby stood gaping at him for a moment.

"Sorry, sir. Uh, see you, Jay. I'm gonna get our gear, now."

I'd rarely seen Toby move that fast, even when Caffrey told him to.

Cottle dumped his cigarette butt in a paper cup half-filled with water, then held it over for me to do the same. The dead butt extinguished with a slight fizz.

"Some people think this is Caprica City Memorial in here--"

The medic came through the curtain with the X-rays, which, after a cursory look, the doctor deemed negative. She laid out all his tools, as he left to scrub up, then smeared an anesthetic paste on my wound. By the time he returned, the gash was numb.

He went to work, sewing me up with quiet confidence. For the first time since I saw my blood all over Maggie Edmondson's hands, I felt reassured.

When he was done, he stepped back, nodding thoughtfully.

"Yeah, Jay. This won't leave much of a scar at all if you take care of it. You'll be chasin' skirts again in no time. We're going to keep you eight hours for observation, though. See how your concussion goes."

I was escorted to a bed, and handed a hospital gown to put on. I balked, but the medic wasn't hearing any of it. I got into my open-backed dress, and lay down. I drifted off to sleep, dreaming of the hollow clang of lead against steel, and dead Cylon eyes.

I was awakened every three hours, asked my name, where I was, my age, what ship I came from. Each time a medic swabbed ointment on my sutured wound.

Finally, I was given a clean bill of health, and Doctor Cottle gave me a note, indicating that I was to sit out of work and get plenty of rest for the next four days.

"Your ship's nurse should be able to remove those stitches in around ten days. Any problems, have them page me," he said, producing a new pack of smokes. He stuck them in my right shirt pocket, gave it a pat. "You're a little old for a lollipop, son."

With that, I was escorted back up to the hangar deck, to an awaiting raptor. My pilot this time was the same one who got me here when I first saw the Wall, met Adama.

"Hi," she said. "Lt. Sharon Valerii."

I don't why I thought she'd recall my face, but I was a little bummed she didn't. I introduced myself. She returned a specialist's salute, after her raptor was deemed ready to go. I found my eyes wandering over to the Cylon raider, up on its jack stands, as if letting it touch the ground would cut it loose. Next to the dead eye slit, I saw gaping bullet holes. My fingers touched my sutures, above my forehead.

"Hey, um, Lieutenant," I asked her. "Was…that thing alive?"

Her dark eyes went somewhere far away, beyond the enemy ship across the hanger deck.

"Yeah," she said, nodding slowly. "It was."


End file.
